C.E. Murphy - Heart of Stone

Margrit absorbed that. “How long’s it been?”

“About eighteen hours. They weren’t real worried, said you were just sleeping. I didn’t believe ’em.”

She pried her eyes open. Tony had days’ worth of stubble, and circles under his eyes, though the bruise she’d given him had faded to faint yellow. “So I’ve been sleeping and you’ve been watching me?”

He pursed his lips, looked around, found no escape, and nodded. “Pretty much.”

Margrit nodded slowly. “You look like hell.”

He spilled worried laughter. “Thanks. You should see the other guy.”

“Would that be me?”

Tony nodded again. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Margrit absorbed that. “Is there a mirror?”

“You think that’s a good idea, Grit?”

“Do you?”

He studied her, then let out a noisy breath. “Yeah, I guess. You’re tough. You’re not pretty right now, though.”

Margrit chortled, pleased with how it didn’t hurt. “I’m insulted. What’s the damage list?”

“Broken arm, broken cheekbone, hairline fractures in your right index and middle fingers, stitches across the cheekbone and, how the hell did you do that with a broken arm?”

She wet her lips. The echo of Ausra’s neck breaking sounded loud in her ears, sending goose bumps over her arms, even the one bound in a cast. “I had to,” she whispered. “She was going to kill me.” The lie came more easily than she’d expected.

Tony’s gaze weighed her. “Her head was twisted around the wrong way.”

Margrit stared at him without comprehension. “Isn’t that what happens when necks get broken?” Her own head seemed to be floating several inches above her body, balloonlike. Uncertainty made a bubble of illness in her stomach, compounded by the painkiller. She shuddered as Tony exhaled wearily.

“Like you were standing behind her.”

Margrit’s tongue thickened, filling her mouth and throat. “I don’t know.” The words sounded as clumsy to her ears as her tongue felt. “I don’t really remember…doing it, Tony.”

It was a half-truth, at best. The memory of Alban standing above her, the powerful jerk of his arms taking Ausra’s life, was all too clear. Too clear, the shocking pop of bone. Even if it hadn’t been her hands making the twist, she could never forget the sound or the way Ausra’s body had turned boneless, slithering heavily from Alban’s grip. Margrit shuddered again and swallowed against sickness.

Tony’s hands came into her line of vision, palms out. “Sorry. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. You okay?”

She swallowed down bile a second time and nodded. “Under the circumstances, I’m great.”

“You’ve got that right. You’ve got more structural damage than the other women, but I figure you had a chance to fight back and they didn’t. I’ll need to get a statement when you’re feeling better.”

“Sure.” Margrit let her eyes close again.

“Damnedest thing,” Tony added. “They packed up her body and brought it to the morgue. The boys went to work on it the next morning and it’d calcified.”

Margrit’s eyes popped open despite the apparent weight of her lids. “It’d what?”

“They never saw anything like it. They called it sudden something or other calcification, I forget, but I think what that means is they don’t know, and they’re going to try hard to forget about it. I saw it. Looked like a marble statue that’d been pounded half to dust.”

Your people are good at ignoring things they don’t want to see. Margrit remembered Alban saying that. She shivered again. “Remind me not to use the drugs she was on.”

Tony grinned ruefully. “No kidding. Look, I’ll let you get some rest. It’s good to see you awake, Grit. Really good.”

“It’s good to be awake. I wasn’t sure I was going to be.”

Tony nodded somberly. “You got lucky. Real lucky.”

“How’d you boys in blue manage to show up in the nick of time?” Margrit frowned, then shrugged. “Almost in the nick of time, anyway.”

“Half the department was in the park, Grit, with the fourth murder down on the southern end. Even city cops come running when people start screaming.”

Margrit huffed a laugh. “Thank God.”

Tony reached out to touch her shoulder carefully. “I’m glad you’re okay, Grit. I’ll-call you?”

Margrit met his gaze a moment, then dropped her eyes. “Yeah. Give me some time to get back on my feet, Tony. I don’t know what’s going on in my head yet.”

“Sure,” he said quietly. “You take care, Grit.”

“You, too.” Margrit closed her eyes and listened for the door closing before she let herself slump back into the pillows.

Daisani sat by her bed the next time she opened her eyes. He looked older than he had in his offices, with lines around his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before, a few silver hairs threaded through the black at his temples. He rolled up his right sleeve with tidy, small movements, entirely focused on the task at hand. Margrit watched him through a distant haze of morphine for a few seconds before rasping, “Hello.”

He looked up with a faint smile, then completed the last fold of his sleeve, his arm exposed to the elbow. “Good evening, Miss Knight. I’m very pleased with you.”

“Oh good. What for?” Sudden panic cramped Margrit’s stomach with sickness as she remembered the copycat killer. “Oh God. Please tell me they caught him.”

“In fact, they did. Getting off the plane at Heathrow. I admire your resourcefulness. I could use a woman like you.”

Margrit’s head went balloonlike again, floating from relief, even as the rest of her body seemed to sink through the bed from the same emotion. “I think you said that before,” she managed. Daisani smiled.

“I believe I did. I still mean it. But I’m not here to talk business right now, Miss Knight. I wanted to extend my sympathies on your illness and wish you a speedy recovery. And,” he added, eyebrows lifted, “to make good on my part of the bargain.” He turned his head, nodding at a neatly tied package sitting on her bedside table. “You delivered. The fur is yours. I trust the first one was returned to its owner in a timely fashion.”

Margrit let her eyes close again. “It was. You took it knowing she’d die, didn’t you. Put it up in your office as a prize. You’re just a right bastard, aren’t you?” The lack of wisdom in the words hit her only after they were spoken, and she swallowed.

Daisani chuckled, his voice light with humor as he spoke. “In my defense, one of my workmen delivered the skins to me without knowing what they were. I have a standing order, you see. Bring anything that seems precious or unusual directly to me.”

“It was a derelict building that people were living in, Mr. Daisani.” Margrit’s voice was scratchy. “Taking things from people is called stealing, even if they’re not supposed to be living there in the first place.”

“I like to think of it as an exchange of goods. They live in my building, I collect…rent. I suspect the difference is slight enough from your perspective that you’ll think me a right bastard regardless.” He laughed again. “I’ve been called considerably worse in my time, though rarely by a mortal woman who knew me for what I am. You amuse me, Miss Knight. I think you have no idea how rare that is.”

“I do try.” Margrit’s voice croaked and she coughed before forcing her eyes open again. “You’re about the last person I’d expect to see here. What happened with the injunction?”

Unmitigated delight crossed the vampire’s face. “Your supervisor has made a positive circus out of it all. He’s managed to convince half the city, without saying anything slanderous, that you’ve ended up in the hospital as a direct result of taking on my corporation over the building destruction. The injunction went through this morning.”